This invention relates to an inflatable, cushioning, bubble wrap product.
This invention relates particularly to a bubble wrap product which has the bubbles formed in individual inflatable strips. The individual inflatable strips extend laterally across the width of a sheet of film material, and each individual inflatable strip has a plurality of bubble chambers with each bubble chamber interconnected to an adjacent bubble chamber by an interconnecting passageway. The interconnected passageway is smaller in size and in internal volume that the bubble chambers but is sufficiently large to enable air volume and pressure in one inflated bubble chamber to be transmitted to adjacent bubble chambers for distributing a shock load on one bubble chamber along the entire length of the individual inflatable strip of interconnected bubble chambers.
This invention relates particularly to a bubble wrap product in which each individual inflatable strip is defined between two laterally extending spaced apart peripheral seal lines which have an undulating configuration free of corner shapes which could concentrate stresses.
Webs of plastic film which are constructed to permit the production of patterns of air filled envelopes, cushions and pillows have (in the past ten years or so) been used extensively for cushioning objects to be transported in containers.
The thin webs incorporate two thin sheets of plastic film and are inexpensive, tough, resilient and recyclable.
Inflated pillow packagings which are created from these webs of plastic film are used for void-fill packaging to replace products such as crumpled paper or polyethylene peanuts and for protective packaging to replace molded or extruded forms.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,454,642; 5,651,237; 5,755,328; 4,017,351; and 5,824,392 disclose methods, apparatus, and webs of plastic film used for making strips of inflated pillow packaging of this general kind. Each of these U.S. patents is incorporated by reference in this application.
Co-pending applications Ser. No. 09/207,129 filed Dec. 8, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,000, Ser. No. 09/439,552 filed Nov. 12, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,286, and Ser. No. 09/638,843, filed Aug. 14, 2000, also disclose methods, apparatus and webs of plastic film of this general kind. Each of these three co-pending applications is assigned to the same assignee as the assignee of this application. Each of these three co-pending applications is incorporated in this application by reference.
It is a primary object of the present invention to construct a web of two sheets of film material in a pattern of seal lines which enables an inflatable, conformable, cushioning, multiple bubble strip, packaging product to be produced which has significant functional and economic advantages over existing bubble packaging.
It is a related object to construct an inflatable packaging product which enables inflated bubble chambers to be large enough so that only a single layer of inflated packaging product can provide the necessary cushioning for many objects.
It is a related object to construct an inflatable packaging product in which substantially all of the area of the packaging product is available for inflation to provide cushioning.
It is a related object to construct an inflatable packaging product which is highly conformable to provide effective cushioning at all angles of possible shock loads on the object being shipped.
It is a related object to construct an inflatable packaging product in which the seal lines for inflatable bubble structures have an undulating configuration free of corner shapes or sharp bends which could concentrate stresses.
It is a related object to construct an inflatable packaging product having a plurality of individual inflatable strips of multiple bubble cushioning structures which extend laterally across the longitudinal length a web of inflated film material and in which each bubble chamber in an individual inflatable strip is interconnected to an adjacent bubble chamber by an interconnecting passageway which is smaller in size and internal volume than the bubble chambers but which is sufficiently large to enable air volume and pressure in one inflated bubble chamber to be transmitted to adjacent bubble chambers for distributing a shock load on one bubble chamber along the entire length of the inflatable strip of interconnected bubble chambers.